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Tuesday, April 01, 2008

A whole new curling world

Once again, as we declared following Canada’s championship, the women of curling put on a fine show. Play was generally aggressive and miles ahead of what we saw even a year ago. And if China were half as aggressive in the final as they had been during the week, they just might have gone all the way.

But there is nothing to take away from the new world champions. Rarely has the curling world seen a display of gutsy, never-say-die performance... and not over just one nine-day tournament, but two.

“Regardless of how this championship develops, the world curling landscape has been redefined, possibly forever. What we have seen this week confirms the global growth of our sport, certainly at the high-performance level.

“China was the number one team all week. Japan is in the playoffs. Meanwhile, Canada lost twice, the U.S. is out and Scotland was knocked out very early.

• And finally, it turns out the Prime Minister wasn’t the only Canadian politician to congratulate the Jones team. It’s no surprise that Stephane Dion’s release reads exactly like what it is: something thrown together by someone who has no clue about the sport, unlike Stephen Harper, who is a genuine fan.